Miss Rachel

The main news here is that spring semester is over. Woo hoo!  The last week of it had some pretty intense writing (and freaking out), but I got the paper done , did a presentation and got an A in the class.  It’s been a week now, and I’m still reveling in being done!  At least for now.  I need four more classes to get my degree.  But still – four more classes – that’s not many at all.

Right now I’m in Rockport with Blue, visiting my mom and Andrea (my sister) and the cats of course.  I brought Woody’s ashes with me to give to Andrea.  Sweetie and I still miss Woody, but she was my sister’s cat for years before that, and besides, with the ashes of Max (my dog) and Trinka (my cat) on the fireplace mantle, I feel like that’s enough.  I don’t think I will be saving the ashes of all my pets for years to come.  I mean, it could get out of control.  I did put Woody’s personalized ceramic bowl on the mantle though.

During the last few weeks of the semester, I gave myself something of a pass on working out, planning to train for a 5K and hit it hard once I was “free” again.  I pictured myself running fast and feeling great.  It didn’t really end up going that way.  Monday I didn’t have any running buddies so I ended up walking (I ran for like two minutes somewhere in there) the 2.2 mile path at work, then Tuesday I went to Power Sculpt class (more on that in another post), Wednesday I bagged out, but on Thursday I did run-walk intervals for 20 minutes on the ‘mill and 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, and that felt more like it as far a training for a 5K. That is, training to *run* a 5K. I have to do some more cardio this weekend too…

I also kind of took a break from cooking the last couple weeks of the semester, but last week, I got back into it.  I guess it’s fortunate that I love vegetables so much since they’re naturally vegan and healthy.  Monday night I made of my favorite combinations: braised leek, Swiss chard and corn served over soba noodles, seasoned with roasted sesame oil and nutritional yeast.

I also adore the seitan made by The Bridge, (admittedly, I haven’t tried any other brands yet), but I hadn’t had any for a while when I finally made some on Thursday.  I came home from my workout and slapped together an easy but yummy dinner: pan-fried seitan, Road’s End Shells & Chreese, and steamed asparagus.  It was all delicious, and especially great to have seitan again.  I’m going to make sure buy some more for the coming week. A friend mine who tried seitan after she learned how much I love it commented on Facebook that she’d like to love it but she really doesn’t.  Oh well, more for me then!

Tags: animals, asparagus, corn, leeks, nutritional yeast, pasta, recipes, Rockport, running, school, seitan, sesame, Swiss chard, working out

We have no internet or telephone at my house, and it’s really thrown a wrench into my weekend plans. The phone I can take or leave, but not the internet. I came back from class yesterday hoping to wipe out some of my brain cells watching The Real Housewives of New York City online, but alas it was not to be. Also, the paper and presentation I’m doing for my class (due next week!) is on Web 2.0. I called the phone company on my cell phone and the problem supposed to resolved by tonight. Tonight?! I’m dying I tell you. Right now I’m at a local coffee shop that has free wifi, saving webpages I may need to use as web archives so I can read them offline. Oy.

In other news, what I’ve been up to lately has been mostly working, sleeping, and worrying about my paper. I did run on the treadmill twice too.  I have given myself a pass on working out until my paper is done, but I decided it would be more helpful than not to do a couple light workouts last week so I did run / walk intervals on the treadmill.  There is a new treadmill at the gym and I love it.  Running on it felt so fast and easy.  It also helps that I did it with NO incline.  I usually put the incline at 1% which I’ve read simulates running outside.  I was surprised how much easier it seemed running without the incline, but I went with it since I was trying not to tire myself out too much.  Need to keep my energy for my paper. Which I’ve only written about a paragraph of so far. And that’s all I going to say about that.

Another thing that has happened in the last couple of days is that summer weather has arrived!  Remember in my last entry I said we were having a cold snap? (I think they even got a couple of feet of snow in Vermont last week.) Well, that’s over now. Yesterday it was sunny and up in the 80s!  It was a beautiful day, even a bit too hot last night. Yup a few nights ago, I was wearing two sweaters and lying with a blanket over me, and last night I opened the windows and was commenting on how “hot” it was. But that’s New England.  The weather’s always doing crazy things.

That’s it for now. Back to sipping my cafe au (soy) lait and reading blogs before heading home to the internet-less zone.

Tags: coffee, internet, running, school, spring, vegan dairy